“Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” – Luke 23:42-43 (NASB)
Today, our verse contains a Promise Jesus made to one of the two criminals being crucified at His side. One criminal on one side hurled abuse at Jesus the other asked to be remembered when Jesus came into His kingdom. Jesus promised; “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in” - what? - “paradise.” Some mistakenly say, paradise is a sense of limbo between life and resurrection. No. Consider how Jesus promised, “you’re going to be with me there today.” Wherever it is, if it has a physical location in our universe, it’s where Jesus is. Most everyone on earth longs to find “paradise”—a place of natural perfection, endless provision, no pain, no tears, no illnesses. In the beginning Adam and Eve lived in Paradise. At the end of history, there will be another paradise, the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 2:7 the Apostle John is told “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” The criminal on the cross next to Jesus who believed went to heaven immediately upon death. So it will be for every faith believer.
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